Сборник топиков по английскому языку

MY FAMILY

To speak about the family is always pleasure, because it is one of the main things in our life.

Everybody has a family. Somebody has a big family, others have a little one. There are many families, whose members live with their grandparents. As for me, I live with my parents.

My name is Olga. My surname is Ivanova. I am 18 years old. I am a college graduate. I have neither a sister nor a brother. My family consists of three members: my father, my mother and me. I think that my family is friendly. We live in a comfortable flat in Moscow.

I am tall. My hair is short. My eyes are big and blue. My mother says that I am a very pretty girl. We live in the XXI century and I suppose it is very important to have modern clothes. When I have some free time, I like shopping. My, mother helps me in it. To tell you the truth I don't work and my mother gives me some pocket money. She works a lot to help me to be in good shape. My mother is a manager in one famous firm. She likes her work very much. My mother tries to be the best manager. I think that my mother is my best friend. We like to talk about different things, to cook together. I always follow upon my mother's advice on different situations. My mother wants me to be a good person. She always buys me interesting and useful books to read. She considers that reading is the best way to improve our knowledge. I agree with her.

I would like to tell you about my father. He is very kind and handsome man. He is 40 years old. He has a black hair and brown eyes. He is a driver. He is fond of cars. My father can't live without them. He is a good driver. I am very proud of my father. He spends a lot of time with me and my mother. He loves us very much. My father helps me to find a right decision in difficult situations which happen in my life. He is a very sociable man he, likes to dance and sings songs. My father is fond of fishing. It is his hobby. Every weekend he goes to the river. He is very glad that he has an opportunity to do it. We have a house on the river.

Our family likes summer very much. We spend it in the village. My mother is fond of gardening; to cultivate flowers is her favorite occupation. There are many different flowerers in our garden. I help my mother about the house. I clean the floor, wash up, cook different dishes and do many other things.

I am sure that my family is the best. I love my parents and try to do everything for them.

MY FRIEND

I think it is very important to have a good friend. You may talk to him, go for a walk, and go shopping with him or her. I have a lot of friends. Of course there are many difficult situations and sometimes we can't communicate with each other. The good fact is that we spent our free time together and it may last all day long.

To tell you the truth I am a very happy because I have such friend as Liza. „She is 18. She was my school-mate. We had been studying together in the first form during the eleven years of our school-life.

Liza is a tall girl. She has a long black hair and blue eyes. My friend is well-bred, sociable and kind. She did well at school because she had an unbreakable rule — never studies at night no matter how many written tasks are coming in the morning.

Liza is pure gold. She is warm-hearted, kind and easy-tempered. Everyone loves her. She is always ready to help me, when I am in trouble. Liza is the only daughter of her parents and they adore her. My friend is not selfish.

Liza is fond of reading novels and sometimes she thinks that one book isn't enough to read. She has two or three books going at once. My friend has a lot of books. She considers that books are of great help in any time we need something and they always must be at hand. She has a good idea that it's much better to have a big library of your own books than trying to keep everything in your head. I like to hang around where she is, because she knows a lot of interesting stories, funny jokes.

My friend goes in for sports. She loves to dance since childhood. Liza has beautiful dresses. Every holiday she danced in our school. I am very proud of her.

She is the most amusing person in the world. She thinks that everything in life is funny — even flunking an exam. I am very glad to have such a friend.

MY WORKING DAY

I get up at 7 o'clock every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. I make my bed and go to take a shower in my bathroom. Then I have my breakfast. I usually prepare it by myself; I have a cup of coffee, bread, butter and two eggs. After my breakfast I dress up and put my books, pens, copy-books and other things into my bag. Then I go to college. Our college is near my house. It takes me about 15 minutes to get there. Sometimes I go there with my friend. At school we usually-have 3 or 4 pairs of lessons a day. For example, yesterday I had English, Russian, physical training, Biology, Physics.

I come back home from college at 3 o'clock and I have dinner. After dinner I do my homework. I prefer to learn oral subjects, I don't like written exercises. If I do not have any business, I go for a walk with my friends. Sometimes my mother asks me to go to the shop. I go there and buy bread, eggs, sugar and other products. I go to the market with my mother rather often. We buy some vegetables, fruit and I help my mother to carry our bags. We have many flowers at home. Twice a week I water them. I like flowers very much.

At 7 o'clock in the evening I have meat, potato, and a cup of tea for supper. I always read books and watch TV set in the evening. I go to bed at 10 o'clock.

MY LEISURE

I find it very difficult to speak about my free time because I practically have no leisure now. I was brought up in the family, where there was a motto: «It's an early bird that catches a worm».

I should say that my free time is like fantastic story. These «hot» days I've got absolutely no free time, but I can dream of it and come back to it in my reminiscences.

I like to read most of all. I really love reading. Books of different genres bring pleasure to me. I adore reading historical books. They are very informative and make me proud of my motherland. Books about biographies and lives of famous people bring the idea that anyone can make his / her life honorable and worthy. Detective stories help to relax, they are so catching. Now, when I am got deeply interested in English, I try to read books in English in the original. Recently I've read the book of Oscar Wilde «The Happy Prince» and some other tales. I dream of reading his «Portrait of Dorian Gray». I was surprised to have found that his real fairy tales differ so much from their Russian versions.

In the evening I adore watching TV set. It makes me feel relaxed. Sometimes I laugh at soap operas, but I want to confess that I watched «Santa Barbara» and «The Beautiful and Bold» («Sunset Beach»).

In winter, on weekends, I enjoy going to the forest with my family to ski. I am not a pro in skiing, but it is extremely pleasant, because nature is beautiful and I take a rest from the fuss of the city. Sometimes we go to a theatre. I am fond of Opera and Ballet Theatre. It's beautiful inside of this building, and the staff is wonderful. I like both opera and ballet, but operetta is not for me. Wonderful music carries me away and every visit to the theatre is some kind of a holiday for me. But I like pop music too. I often meet with my friends.

So you can see the way how I spend my free time. But now I miss my leisure and hope to have a deserved rest soon.

MY COLLEGE

At the age of 15 or 16 many boys and girls go to college. I go to college too. The name of my college is Humanitarian college named after Magzhan Zhumabayev. Our college is large and light. There is a college yard around it. Sometimes we have physical training lessons there. There are a lot of flowers near the college. Our college has 3 floors. There is a workshop on the ground floor. It is rather big. There is a room for manual work in our college for girls. It is not on the ground floor, it is on the third floor.

When you enter the college and go to the left you see a dinning-room. Students and teachers have their breakfast and dinner here. The dinning-room is very clean. There are many nice pictures on the walls.

There is a gymnasium above the dinning-room. All students like to go there, because they like physical training lessons. There is a library in our college. It is on the ground floor. There are a lot of new and old interesting books in it. There is a reading-room in our library.

Our college has many classrooms. We have some English classrooms, History, Geography, Physics and other classrooms. They are big and light. Each of them has two or three large windows with green curtains, flowers on the window-sills, a bookcase near the door and the blackboard on the wall. There is a teacher's table not far from the blackboard. There are twenty desks and forty comfortable chairs in the each classroom. There is also a TV set in some classrooms. Sometimes it is used during the lessons. There is a college hall on the second floor where meetings and conferences take place. We organize concerts and festivals in it when we celebrate our holidays. Students of our college sing songs, dance modern and folk dances and perform some plays there.

I like my college. I like to go there and get knowledge.

LONDON

London, the capital of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, is one of the biggest and most beautiful cities of the world.

London is divided into four parts: the City, the West End, the East End and the Westminster.

The City is the oldest part of London. It is the center of its commercial and business life. Most of the biggest and most important London firms and banks are situated there. Also the City may be called the historical heart of London. There are many historical buildings and places are there, such as the Tower of London, the Bank of England, the Mansion House, which is the residence of the Lord Mayor, the Law Courts and many old churches.

The Tower of London was founded by Julius Caesar and rebuilt by William the Conqueror in 1066. It was used as a fortress, a royal palace, a prison, a treasury and an observatory. The main parts are the White Tower, built by William the Conqueror in 1078, and the Bloody Tower. Now it is a museum, housing the National Collection of Armour, and also the place where Crown Jewels are kept.

Not far from the Tower there is the Tower Bridge, the most interesting bridge over the Thames. Seven centuries ago it was one of the wonders of the world. It was narrow and on the both sides of it there were shops and houses. Later it was badly damaged by the Fire of London and reconstructed.

The West End is situated between the City and Hide Park. It is considered to be the most fashionable and expensive part of London. Here one can find the National Gallery, finest theatres, cinemas, concert halls, the largest museums, the most luxurious hotels, the most famous shops.

Westminster Abbey and the Palace of Westminster (with the Houses of Parliament) are in Westminster.

Westminster Abbey is a great historic spot. Here all English kings and queens except two have been crowned and many of them are buried within the Abbey. In medieval times it was a monastery and for over 700 years there were monks in Westminster.

The present Abbey Church, Gothic in style, was built in the XIII century. In the early XVI century Henry the VII built a Chapel which still bears his name. It is called one of the most perfect buildings ever erected in England.

ENGLISH AS A WORLD LANGUAGE

English did not exist as a language of full value about two thousand years. In present time it is a really world language spoken by more than 800 million people. So we can say that English is a world language.

Of course, its present standing in the world is a relatively recent thing. The rise of English began many centuries ago. In that time the first settlements in Britain spoke ancient language which was established as a mother tongue of modern English. Then in XIX and XX centuries the role of English was increasing more and more. It was because of the exporting in all the continents of the world through the massive immigration of people to the USA.

Now English is so popular that more than 50% of all mails and telephone calls in the world are in English. Also English is the language of technology and science. It is also a computer language, because almost 80% information, stored in computers, is in English. Moreover, English is the official language of the Olympics and the Miss Universe Competition. And this list of using English is not finished yet.

We really can see that English is becoming more and more popular. With the growth of population increases the number of people who speak English. People who speak English are divided into three groups. The first group is native speakers. English is their native language. The other group consists of people who use English as a second language in bilingual society. And last group is the people who are educated English for using it for a work or other aim.

So if we take into consideration all this facts we can see that English is the most important language all over the world and it has no equals.

ASTANA

Akmolinsk steppes were always the territory of interethnic ties. Even Herodotus mentioned Great Silk way, which lay through these steppes in the middle of the first millennium B.C. Many caravan ways gave life to the cities with flourishing trade.

in the XIX century Akmola was a popular trading and economic steppe centre. Its history started in 1830 when the Russian Empire founded a fortress with this name by the Karaotkel River. From 1832 the fortress began to be called Akmolinsk and by the end of the XIX century it became a town with the population of about 6428 people. It had three churches, 5 schools and colleges and 3 factories.

The next step in the development of this city was cultivating virgin lands. By 1960 the city having the population 100 thousand people became the centre of the north region of Kazakhstan. It was renamed into Tselinograd and became a beautiful modern city with the population 250 thousand people. Many volunteers from the whole USSR came here to build the city and to live there. Many institutes, hospitals, museums, theatres were built here. The virgin area became an agricultural centre with the developed machinery engineering, cattle-breeding and poultry-keeping.

After Kazakhstan gained its independence the city got its former name - Akmola. But in 1988 when the capital was transferred from Almaty, the city got a symbolic name - Astana. The decision to transfer the capital depended on some economic, ecological and geographical factors. The main arguments in choosing the place for the capital were the general condition of the city, territory, and well-developed transport system. Besides it stimulates the flourishing of the northern, central and eastern regions. Even development of the state economy will be reached.

For the last few years Astana has changed. It became a beautiful city of Kazakhstan. The city centre impresses especially. Grand buildings of the Government and Parliament Houses, other administrative establishments meet all modern requirements. Music College, Opera House, the central square are marked by magnificent architectural items. The Republic Avenue is wonderful at night.

ENGLISH MEALS

The usual meals are breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner; or, in some homes, breakfast, dinner, tea and supper. Breakfast is generally a bigger meal than they have on the Continent, though some English people like a "continental" breakfast of rolls and butter and coffee. But the usual English breakfast is porridge, bacon and eggs, marmalade (made from oranges) with buttered toast, and tea or coffee. For a change you can have a boiled egg, cold ham, or perhaps fish.

The English generally have lunch about one o'clock. The business man in London usually finds it impossible to come home for lunch, and so he goes to a cafe or a restaurant; but if he is making lunch at home he has cold meat (left over probably from yesterday's dinner), potatoes, salad and pickles, with a pudding or fruit to follow. Sometimes the English have a mutton chop, or steak and chips, followed by biscuits and cheese, and some people like a glass of light beer with lunch.

Afternoon tea you can hardly call a meal, but it is a sociable sort of thing, as friends often come in then for a chat while they have their cup of tea, cake or biscuit.

In some houses dinner is the biggest meal of the day. But in a great many English homes, the midday meal is the chief one of the day, and in the evening there is usually a much simpler supper — an omelet, or sausages, sometimes bacon and eggs and sometimes just bread and cheese, a cup of coffee or cocoa and fruit.